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Turn-based strategy can get a little fiddly. It’s all position this, attack that. Depending on your point of view, Rune Raiders [$0.99], the first release from Retro64, could be the genre’s lowest common denominator, or a delightfully straightforward distillation. I’d put my money on the latter.

Rune Raiders couldn’t be much more simple. You take a small party of adventurers—six at the most—each with a single ability and a unique attack pattern. Then you run them straight down a hallway, one grid square at a time. Orcs and minotaurs attack, orcs and minotaurs die. Simple, right? But in that simplicity there hide enough layers of complexity to keep things interesting.

The first layer holds the twelve heroes. For creatures confined to square tiles they’ve rather rich personalities, or archetypes at least. The elf, an archer, is arrogant and image-obsessed. The healer is quite the feminist when it suits her. They’re two of the first, unlocked early on. More come with time.

The elf shoots in a wide circle, a dead-zone all around him. The healer heals things immediately adjacent to her square. Each hero has one ability and a certain range, and the ability triggers at the start of any turn something is in range. Like chess, all you need to do is put the pieces in the right place. It’s just that there’s an awful lot of strategy involved in that simple task.

Layer two is the force you’re up against. There are 15 enemy unit types, and all of them have unique attack patterns. Here’s what you do: you figure out where to put your heroes so you can attack them and they can’t kill you. Each time you move you start a new turn, whether you’re moving your entire team forward or repositioning one hero. And there’s no going back.

As you progress through the game’s 15 levels the enemy formations get more and more complex. But your team also gets stronger. Occasionally an enemy will drop an item that lets you apply a perk to a hero of your choice. Those perks can change the game drastically. They can make a weak hero one of the strongest, or make a tank pull double duty as your best healer. Strategy isn’t something you can simply settle in to, it has to evolve with your team. Let’s call that layer three.

Then there’s the matter of economy. You pick up gold for each enemy you kill, but each hero you bring with you has a cost each time you bring them out. Later heroes cost a mint. Want to assemble a dream team of all your best units? You’ll have to pay for it. Early on you’ll need to learn to do more with less, and that can pay off well in the long run too. You can grind old levels for more gold, and go back stronger to max out your star ratings. That’s where things fall apart, just a little.

Rune Raider’s balance is a bit off. Eventually you can narrow your strategy down to just a few heroes that are the best for every circumstance, and they’ll carry you through any situation you get thrown into. Maxing out their perks is quick work when you focus and with enough gold you can bring them out whenever you want. There are three difficulty modes to play with, but eventually you hit three stars in all 15 levels and that’s that. That, and a strangely scored Survival mode.

So it’s a little rough around the edges. The sound effects are bland, there’s some choppiness when Game Center is enabled, and there’s an outstanding crash that hits when it’s not (a fix is already en route). You can break the game for yourself, so you might end up needing to throw challenges in your own path by restricting your team size. Not ideal in a strategy game, which really ought to hold up to min/maxing on some level. But for a few hours of casual fun? It will certainly do.

Rune Raiders is simple, but it isn’t mindless. It packs several layers of strategy into a casual frame. More than that, it’s rather charming, with characters and quips to make you smile. This is light fare, maybe too light for the serious strategy nut. But it’s also fun and engaging, and just challenging enough to keep its hooks in you till it’s done. Give it a shot, and stop by our forums to share your thoughts.

TouchArcade Rating:

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Depending on how much you relish your DotA (If the acronym made you raise a puzzled eyebrow, don’t worry. We’ll get into all that shortly), you may either find Plants War [Free] an unexpected treat or a moderately competent RTS. It could go either way. Best described as a heavily diluted, single-player version of the world’s favorite Warcraft III mod, Plants War will have you leading Dryad Forest’s local vegetation in a struggle against some encroaching… animals? Global warming definitely screwed up the environment here.

Gameplay-wise, Plants War – Gamevil’s latest freemium title – works something like this. Before you begin each stage, you’ll be asked to elect an upgradable hero (the first you get for free, the others you’ll have to earn through extensive grinding or buy as an in-app purchase). After that, you’ll be at liberty to select the troops you want to deploy in the upcoming onslaught. Yet again, only the first one comes free.

To unlock the other units, you’re going to have to amass a fortune in gold or green leaves. A fair warning, however – the number of horticultural soldiers that you can utilize is limited by the number of slots and plants points you have available. In order to exceed the quota, you’re going to have to (you guessed it!) make a few choice purchases.

Once you’re done with all those decisions, the action begins. The objective here is to blow up the enemy’s base before they can do the same to yours. At regular intervals, both bases will spawn pre-determined units that will barrel towards their opponent with all the suicidal fortitude you would expect of NPC shock troopers. Needless to say, death is their only inhibition. Though you’re significantly more powerful than the ground troops, you’re not omnipotent. In order to succeed in your mission, you’re going to have to make efficient usage of your unsuspecting meat shields.

You will also have to make full usage of the four different skills available to the Leafy that you’re using. Initially, you’re only going to be able to invest a point in one skill. However, as you gain in level (acquire the last hit on an enemy to gain the maximum amount of experience points possible), you will be able to pour more points into your skills. Alternatively, you can choose to increase your mana pool. The choice is yours. Anything goes so long as it ensures certain victory.

(For those of you who do play DotA, Plants War can be summed up as ‘Middle-lane only DotA with no river, items or neutral camps.’)

And that’s pretty much the whole game in a nutshell. It doesn’t get more complex than that. However, the details are what make Plants War work. Each stage will impose a new challenge to your talent for picking the most suitable troops. Are you facing off against highly aggressive mice with a penchant for gnawing through shrubbery? Be sure to bring along a Tree Protector and a grim-faced Potato Blower. Are you up against some sturdy bears? Try some Seed Shooters.

Though certain combinations work better than others, it’s not impossible to be creative with things. As you progress through the game, you’re also going to have to battle with a variety of enemy heroes, each more difficult than the last. While you can bring a different hero to the conflict (assuming you’ve already purchased them, of course), you can also attempt to make do with the first Leafy you use. How do you bait a fast-moving tiger into being mounted onto a wall? Can you kite a hard-hitting bear around in circles while slowly pepper spraying him into submission? Once again, it’s entirely up to your own discretion.

The controls in Plants War are responsive and extremely simple to learn. To move, you tap on the screen. To attack, you tap on the screen. To use an ability, you – you get the picture. In order to zoom in and zoom out, you’re going to have to alternately pinch and unpinch the screen. My only complaint here is the fact that targeting can be extremely difficult at times when the hero is clumped up with their troops.

With three levels of difficulty associated with each stage, twenty-four achievements to unlock, a multitude of rewards to collect and a menagerie of units to discover, there’s not much to dislike about this stream-lined little title. Unfortunately, there’s also not much to it. Once you’ve beaten the first few levels, things can grow rather repetitive. You can only do so much with the same set of faces. If you want new minions to abuse, you’re going to have to either spend an inordinate amount of time grinding for gold coins or cough up the greens.

All said and done, however, it isn’t too bad given the non-existent price of admission. The problem here is whether or not you like this style of play. If you enjoy this sort of experience, you will probably lose occasional hours to the game. If not, you will probably lose interest after the first three games. It’s all rather binary.

TouchArcade Rating:

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Nowadays there is a veritable smorgasbord of excellent iOS platformers, but it wasn’t always this way. Virtual controls have always been a sticking point with platformers on a touch screen, rarely offering the type of precision needed in such a game. One of the games that managed to nail the control problem early on, back in October of 2009 to be exact, was Touch Foo’s Soosiz [$1.99/HD].

Soosiz was a bright and colorful 2D platformer built around an interesting gravity mechanic and levels made up of tiny planet-like platforms not totally dissimilar from the Super Mario Galaxy titles. Soosiz was pretty well-loved by gamers and critics alike, and served as an early benchmark for how virtual controls should work in a platformer.

Since Soosiz, however, Touch Foo has been quiet on the App Store front, and I’ve caught myself wondering just what the team might be up to for their follow-up release. Last week, they announced in our forums what that follow-up title is, and they’ve sent word today that we won’t be waiting long to try out the game for ourselves as it will be launching this Thursday.

The game is called Swordigo, and it’s another platforming game but looks to be quite a departure from Soosiz. It’s a 2.5D game, meaning the visuals are made of 3D graphics but the gameplay itself is strictly classic 2D. There is a bigger focus on action and battling enemies this time around, and there will be RPG elements that let you level up your character, weapons, spells, and items.

Check out the awesome trailer below to get a good idea of what’s in store for Swordigo:

Swing back by later this week when we do our weekly roundup of new releases to get your own hands on the game, which will be launching as a Universal app at the $1.99 price point, and we’ll put Swordigo through its paces once it’s released and bring you a full review soon too.

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Flight Control Rocket [$.99] is beautiful. The art is pyrotechnic: the groovy colors are sharp and detailed, betraying no fuzz, gloom, or jagged edges on the new iPad. Even the menus have flair. Created intricately to reflect the swinging sci-fi themes that the rest of the game is so gleefully entrenched in, they’re a pleasure to plumb. The on-screen antics feel just as good, as Firemint has iterated on the core design in really fresh ways. But, it’s a shame that all of this is wrapped in the stench of corporate influence. Some of the most interesting additions to the core play model are rendered meaningless courtesy clumsily handled free-to-play functionality.

The sci-fi influence, outside of the slicker and more vibrant visual appeal, is just a fun contrivance to push the series’ usual conceit: take a ship, plot a course, and then repeat until the screen is so full of ships, that it becomes impossible to not avoid a mid-space collision. New features include a fascinating variety of ships with abilities, all of which refreshingly change up the pacing. There’s 15 new ships in total, including a snake-like series of ships that coils as you move it, a ship that splits into two, and even a new drop-ship type that spits out smaller ships into the playing area.

The new ships also feel like stopgaps, designed specifically to keep you from developing a rhythm or from zoning out. Flight Control is usually just an effort in concentration; but with these, it is becoming a much more viable strategy game. There’s enough content on a micro-level now to warrant focus, forethought, and tactics.

To its credit, the action stays manageable despite the varying seeds, sizes, and the abilities of certain ship classes. In part, this is because the action feels a hair or two slower, but there’s also a new health component that allows for a couple of hiccups along the way, whereas the previous game just ended after one collision. It also doesn’t hurt that this series remains a breeze to play: tap and trace, that’s it.

A not-so-clever IAP system sours all of the good vibes these parts of the experience can offer. As you play across the game’s two modes, endless and a time-based survival mode, you’ll earn pieces of optionally purchasable in-game gold. You can use this, in turn, to buy robitic avatars that grant specific bonuses during play. The starter robot randomly ratchets up the score of a landed ship, for example, while others bump up gold earned or grant you extra lives. These sound neat in theory, and they would be totally fun adds if (a) they weren’t saddled by egregious IAP loops, and (b) weren’t laughably expensive.

In order to use a robot more than three or so times, you need to spend in-game gold on the batteries to power them. IAP loops consistently strike me as beyond tacky, and in this situation, they’re rigged in the game’s favor. Also, my mental math says it’ll take me at least a dozen hours to obtain one of the top-tier robots without spending any dough, which is especially silly considering this game costs real money to begin with. It’s sad. The robots idea is a casualty of a crazy business model that is too aggressive, too Facebook-y to take seriously. It’s a big, black eye instead.

Minus the free-to-play shenanigans, Flight Control Rocket is easily the best entry in the series so far, as it sports a lot of fresh and fun ideas, as well as a groovy new theme that Firemint fleshes out splendidly throughout. It’s also one of the best looking new iPad games. But, the free-to-play components do exist, and they keep the experience from feeling like a cohesive whole. This game is split into parts, as a result, and the bad has a habit of putting a damper on the good.

TouchArcade Rating:

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If you’re familiar with our sister site AppShopper, you’re likely all over the various search and RSS functionalities of the site. If you’re not, I go over a few neat tricks in a post from Labor Day on how to find games on the cheap or even free utilizing AppShopper. Well, AppShopper has another trick up its sleeve, making it easy to find new games and apps that have been recently updated to support the Retina Display of the new iPad.

Check out these two searches:

• iPad games updated with Retina support.
• All iPad apps and games updated with Retina support

Those two links are updated as close to real time as Apple allows, and they can be subscribed to in your favorite RSS reader so you can always stay on top of what is being released. Pretty snazzy, eh?

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New Scientist is reporting on a study by Purdue PhD computer science student Abhinav Pathak on energy usage in free mobile games. If you browse around Pathak’s site, he’s spent his time building all sorts of in-depth debugging tools to really nail down where your battery is spent on different functions inside of a mobile application.

The findings aren’t surprising:

For example, in Angry Birds only 20 per cent is used to display and run the game, while 45 per cent is spent finding and uploading the user’s location with GPS then downloading location-appropriate ads over a 3G connection. The 3G connection stays open for around 10 seconds, even if data transmission is complete, and this “tail energy” consumes another 28 per cent of the app’s energy. …Read More

Angry Birds isn’t alone in this phenomenon, as basically any free game that’s serving you ads is doing all sorts of battery-burning stuff in the background to constantly fetch the newest and (hopefully) most relevant advertisements for you. Again, this might be one of those “Well, duh” sort of stories for a lot of people out there, but it’s just another fantastic example in that even though the price of a free game might technically be zero dollars, even without IAP, you’re “paying” for that game in other ways– Often at the expense of battery life.

[via New Scientist]

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Adam Saltsman and Semi Secret’s moody and atmospheric daring escape runner, Canabalt [$2.99], will soon be available for download across the PSP, PS3, and PS Vita in the US. The studio, in collaboration with The Beatshapers, have launched a PSP Minis version of the game in Europe. A US version of the flash-turned-iOS-turned-Minis game will follow later this week, Saltsman has said on the Twitters.

We’ve been enjoying Canabalt on touch platforms for what feels like eons at this point, but that doesn’t put a damper on our desire to check it out on other devices. Canabalt and its infinite action is as timeless and as fast as a vampire with track shoes. Here’s a few screens and a trailer of this version:

[via Joystiq]

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It takes a lot to make a match three stand out these days. If anyone has what it takes, though, it’s the dream team of Launching Pad Games and PikPok. Monster Flip [$0.99] is developed by the former and published by the latter, and that pedigree shows. It’s a slow burner, but invest a little time and you’ll start to see why it deserves your love.

Monster Flip isn’t the same ol’ gem swapping game. The clue is in the title: these little dudes need to flip. Swipe your finger over a line of three or more and they’ll flip over and swap positions. If this happens to line up at least three matching monsters, then score. It’s a bit of a trick to wrap your head around the flipping, but that’s just the challenge of the first few minutes. Once you have that under control you can start to pay attention to the little things. Like how quickly your score gets out of hand when you chain a few matches in a row. Or how steaming mad monsters are more than just a hassle.

Sometimes the monsters get angry, you see. It happens more and more as you progress deeper down the rabbit hole. Six turns after spawning a mad monster will throw a game-ending tantrum, so you have to stay on top of matching and clearing them. But here’s the rub: the longer you leave them, the more they’re worth. Want to truly dominate the leaderboards? Clear mad monsters on their sixth and final turn as often as you can. It’s a huge risk, but the rewards are astronomical.

Classic mode is chill; you can take all the time you want to strategize and plan your attack. You can see the next row of colors that will drop, so triggering upcoming chains is one varsity-level strategy. If you’re not into relaxed, thoughtful experiences you can check out Countdown, which pits you against a two-minute timer.

But the real fun is Sequence mode. There, you’re given the exact same board as everyone in the world and 50 moves to make the most of it. Theoretically, there should be a perfect game out there to be played, and if you’re really, really good, you could be the one to play it. That’s the bit that gets my motor running.

If that’s not enough, you can play a whole other way in Puzzle mode, striking out to clear each of 60 boards with increasingly more complicated layouts. Launching Pad has been generous with the unlocks so you should never get stuck—if you do, there’s IAP available to unlock them all.

So with all that we have a matching game that’s clever and surprisingly strategic, one that has a lot of content to work through and several ways to play. But that alone wouldn’t make this game. What makes it is the positively adorable art and soundtrack. Jeramiah “Module” Ross is responsible for the music. You might remember his work from Monsters Ate my Condo, and he hits it out of the park here too (albeit in a slightly calmer way). In fact, all of the game’s sounds are great. I keep poking the monsters just to hear ‘em squeal.

When you get right down to it, Monster Flip is yet another matching game. If there’s absolutely no room in your life for yet another one of those, you’re not going to swoon over this one. But if there’s any part of you that craves those drop and match combo chains and the increasingly ecstatic chirps and score-splashes that accompany them, this is where you’ll want to look. Not convinced? Swing by our forums and share in the lovefest.

TouchArcade Rating:

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It was just this past Friday that we took an in-depth look at Digital Tales’ Battleloot Adventure, a new action-focused RPG, and really enjoyed what we saw in our preview copy. The game had been submitted to Apple and we were hopeful that the final version of the game would be available sometime this week. Well, the Apple approval gods must have been shining down on Digital Tales, as literally the very next day Battleloot Adventure [99¢/HD] appeared in the App Store.

Our preview of Battleloot Adventure should give you a pretty good idea of what to expect based on our limited time with the game, but we’ll definitely be curious to see how the experience holds up through the entire game. We’ll be putting Battleloot Adventure through the ringer to test out that very thing, but all signs seem to point to a quality offering with a stellar art style and presentation, wonderfully simple combat mechanics, and the usual character leveling elements that come with an RPG. You can grab Battleloot Adventure from the links below, or check in on our forums for even more impressions.

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When it comes to platformers and racers, RedLynx (1000 Heroz, DrawRace 2) knows a thing or two about what makes the genres successful on iOS. The trend continues with MotoHeroz [$0.99 / HD], a time-trial based platforming racer with an emphasis on physics. Sporting refined gameplay elements including a good implementation of asynchronous multiplayer, MotoHeroz does a good job combining genres into an interesting gameplay experience.

Based on the WiiWare game of the same name, MotoHeroz combines the time-trial based platforming elements of previous RedLynx titles with vehicles and upgrade mechanics. Each level pits you in a race against the clock to get to the other end of the map. Some maps offer power-up items ranging from turbo boosts to jetpacks in order to add some variety. Stars and cash are awarded based on your speed. You can then use that cash to upgrade your vehicles, which allows you to earn previously unreachable stars, and so on.

Make no mistake, while the general gameplay sounds simple, MotoHeroz can get quite difficult. This is especially true once you find yourself needing to earn that second or third star to advance to the next world. Players looking to succeed will need to master fine-tuning their jumps and landings in order to squeeze out as much control and speed as possible. The controls add another layer of difficulty on top of the game, as I found it challenging to effectively manage the items and landings.

All this leads to a game that involves a lot of trial and error. While veterans of the genre may be used to it, newcomers may be met with frustration. Still, for fans of memorizing tracks and patterns, MotoHeroz is almost as good as it gets. Alternatively, folks can also hunt for treasure chests in each level that bestow a decent amount of cash for upgrades (which make star chasing much easier).

If neither of those actions appeals to you, you can always purchase cash via IAP and pimp out your ride instantly to earn those stars faster. This is one area that MotoHeroz falters somewhat. While it’s theoretically possible to earn enough cash to upgrade your vehicles enough to collect more stars, it can be a fairly lengthy process and is not for the impatient. In this sense, the IAP will certainly prey on a lot of gamers. However, MotoHeroz deserves some credit simply because a viable non-IAP method of advancement does exist.

Unfortunately, this version of MotoHeroz is a bit lacking compared to its console cousin. The total number of levels was reduced from 100 to 30. A few other modes (single-player story, multiplayer) were also omitted. However, there’s still enough content for a worthwhile experience, particularly with its asynchronous ghosts and multiplayer leagues.

While MotoHeroz doesn’t have live head-to-head action, the asynchronous multiplayer via racing ghosts is well done and acts as a great substitute. Each level will pit you against a ghost for the next available star, as well as an actual player that raced the track. As you set times in each level, you’ll be matched with player ghosts that are slightly faster than your best time. The ghosts are an important element to the overall success as MotoHeroz as it provides you with continual motivation (as if getting all the stars weren’t enough) to perfect each level.

MotoHeroz also allows you to form ‘Leagues’ that can replace the overall leaderboard, meaning that your racer ghost will be someone from that league. Leagues can be created and joined by any other player (in fact, you can join the ‘Touch Arcade’ league that our forum members have created). It seems like a minor feature, but I found it much more gratifying to actually play against folks you know.

Visuals and overall presentation are areas where MotoHeroz succeeds really well. Environments are detailed, vibrant and do a great job echoing the personality of the vehicle for that region. The framerate is also fast and smooth, which definitely enhances the experience. MotoHeroz even gets the small touches right, such as having an instant restart button for quick do-overs.

Despite the shortcomings in content and difficulty, MotoHeroz is still a great addition to the platform racer genre. While I think the ‘hardcore’ nature of the gameplay will appeal mainly to the hardcore fans, the supplemental league ghosts and leaderboards do a good job of providing additional goals that might appeal to a wider audience. Regardless, fans of platform racers (or previous RedLynx titles) need to check this game out.

TouchArcade Rating:

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